This is a blog consisting mainly of my recent columns - on history, politics, economics, and some frivolous ones. I enjoy writing, and enjoy good writing.

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

AMERICAN APPROACHES TO RACE

[The Americans are internationally notorious for their race problem. As a child, I had read the story of Booker Tallaferro Washington. When I had gone to the US in the 1990s, I passed a black beggar sitting on the footpath. I stopped to give something, but found I did not have money. So I told him I was sorry. He said that was all right; it was nice of me to talk to him. I often tried to talk to blacks, but it was difficult; they were not used to chatting to strangers. In and around Stanford, there were few blacks, but I continued to be interested in them. This column, published in Business Standard of 7 February 2000, was the result. I continue to think that our approach to the Dalits and Muslims is unimaginative and ineffective, and that we could learn from the US.]Making a difference

When Martin Luther King Junior marched against race
discrimination in the 1960s, what engaged him were basic things like the right
to vote, the right to sit on the same seat in a bus, or a right to attend a
school. Those rights were won quite quickly, although he paid for them with his
life. By the 1970s young Bill Clinton was canvassing black votes when he ran
for Governor of Arkansas, white and black seats in buses were gone, and the US
Supreme Court had forced schools to admit black children. In the 1980s, the
proportion of black students who graduated from high school rose from 51 to 66
per cent; the proportion of black students aged 25 and over who held college
degrees rose from 8 to 11 per cent.

But although more blacks may be passing examinations,
their performance in the examinations continues to be miserable. In 1995,
104,000 black students took the Scholastic Aptitude Test. It involves a verbal
test; only 465 scored 650 or more on the verbal test. One sees this in daily
life here; few young blacks are articulate, let alone fluent. The number of
white students who took the test was 674,000; 36,700 scored 650 or more. In the
maths test, the number of students who got more than 650 was 1437 amongst
blacks and 51,306 amongst whites. It is no longer a matter of discrimination;
it is a matter of poor performance, right from the start. Many of the teachers
of black children are black. The US has a qualification for high-quality
teachers called National Board Certificate; a teacher who gets it can teach
anywhere in the United States. The pass rate for the certificate is 48 per
cent; for black teachers, it is 3 per cent. At last count, only 253 of the
14,000 school superintendents were black.

We have the same problem with the scheduled castes in
India, and we solve it by lowering the passing standards for them. They thus go
through their entire lives poorly prepared. One only has to hear what
high-caste people say about their scheduled caste colleagues; and not all of it
is based on prejudice.

It is not a problem that the privileged will solve for
the less privileged; the less privileged have to strive themselves. So in 1974,
a few black school superintendents started the National Alliance of Black
School Superintendents. Soon it became a teachers’ organization. The way it is
trying to tackle the problem of black underperformance is of interest to us in
India. Charles D Moody Sr, the first black superintendent of schools, says,
“People approached the whole era of desegregation as just a matter of mixing
bodies. They didn’t look at the notion of access to all the resources, all of
the opportunities that were available in schools. What you ended up having in a
lot of schools was segregation within schools – almost like two schools in one…
You can’t put all the responsibility for making progress on the shoulders of
kids. Who are the people who are willing to be mentors to these children?
Regardless of how competent you are, of how smart you are, if you don’t have a
mentor or a sponsor, your career ability is limited.”

NABSE identifies the best schools as demonstration
schools, and puts them and their practices up for emulation. It promotes the
cause, for instance, of Beverly Hall, superintendent of schools in Newark.
Battling politicians, officials and parents, she set up all-day kindergartens
so that teachers could teach without worrying about their children, cleaned up
school buildings, trained teachers to use computers and audiovisual aids in
their teaching, fired 600 administrators and a number of school principals, and
closed a middle school. She raised the proportion of students passing New
Jersey’s High School Proficiency Test from a quarter to over a half. She was
battling to close down a high school when Atlanta offered her superintendentship;
there she has attracted funds from Ford Foundation and Lucent Technologies for
experiments in education.

Another model put forward is Fanny Gibson, a school
principal in Chicago. When she took over ten years ago, 1 per cent of the
school’s students passed a state reading test; last year, 36 per cent did. She
aligned the teaching with the state standards, reinforced it by bringing in a
lot of parent volunteers and teacher assistants, and exposed children to
something beyond the curriculum, such as chess and the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra.

What is striking is the kind of interaction that NABSE
seeks with the outside world. We are familiar with trade unions in India –
inbred, secretive organizations that come into the limelight only when they organize
strikes. NABSE, of course, asks people to give money. But that apart, it asks
people to invite a child or children to spend a day with them at work, to
volunteer to run an after-school or summer school programme, to clean, paint
and help maintain a school, or to adopt a parent – help her to supervise
children. It asks companies to provide short-term staff, employ students of
NABSE schools as summer interns, participate in work-study programmes for
children, and sponsor science fairs, speaking and writing contests.

NABSE’s approach and attitude seem to me to be far better
designed to equip children from a disadvantaged community for life than those
that we in India have adopted. We proceed on the assumption that belonging to a
scheduled caste by itself constitutes a historical injustice, and that the way
of setting it right is by giving its members functions beyond their ability.
NABSE’s approach is to tackle the causes of disability. No one believes today
that the causes are inherent; so we must all believe that the causes lie in the
environment. If so, it must be possible to improve the performance of the
disadvantaged by changing the environment; and the school forms the larger part
of a child’s environment. Poor students need better schooling than good ones, not worse.

About Me

I write in newspapers and magazines for a living. That does not occupy me much, since I write pretty fast. So I travel when I have money, swim when it is not too cold, and read to be surprised, challenged and entertained at other times.
I was a professional economist for three decades. I taught, wrote, studied and reported. I worked in five countries, and did twelve jobs.
When, in 1991, India was in an economic crisis, Manmohan Singh, an economist bureaucrat, was made India's finance minister. He engaged me. We reversed old socialist policies, fashioned new policies in a hurry and tried them out. They worked. In two years the crisis was overcome, and I was no longer needed. So I left.
At that time I was full of passion and zeal. I felt that we needed to do much more. So I turned to journalism.
Now I am no longer so evangelical. The media are a melting pot of ideas and emotions. If one is careful enough not to take them too seriously, they can provide much excitement and entertainment. I am one of the performers in the drama.
Ideas get honed and tempered in the crucible of debate. I look for a more equal relationship between the writer and the reader in this blog.